Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door, let's go

Here's an interesting milestone in my CI journey:  I'm going to move into a different office.  For most of the last eight years or so I've been in an office that's next to a room that we use for plant management meetings (so if it's in use I'm likely in there) and to a larger room that we use for training. You can see where this is going, right?  Prior to having the CI I was rarely bothered by noise (even though my office is also next to the door, and when the production employees go off-shift it's somewhat Flintstone-esque in that they're often talking and laughing with each other or on their phones, and often stop at my office door to say good night, which is really nice of them except that I'm frequently trying to concentrate). Is there a rule about parenthetics that are longer than the actual sentence content?   Anyway, lately I've been beyond annoyed by the noise level during training.  Added to that is that the room is also often used...

Today was kind of CI centered, without really being about my hearing at all.   First thing this morning I had my checkup, so I skipped breakfast and hopped over to the doctor's office - for definitions of "hopped over" that include "took a reasonably cumbersome detour because it's road work season in Minnesota.   After the usual preliminaries (height, weight, blood pressure, temp, etc etc) I waited for the doctor to arrive.  When he did, we covered the checkup bit pretty quickly (I'm basically quite healthy) and then he started asking questions.  Turns out I'm his first patient with a CI and he was very interested in the process and we talked for a while about the experience that I've been having.  It makes sense that most people wouldn't have had any contact with the process - I think the current estimate is about 400,000 people worldwide have been implanted, and about half of those in the United States, so as a percentage of the population w...

Like most people with sensorineural hearing loss, I hear higher pitched sounds particularly badly.  I have often struggled to hear women with high-pitched voices.  A few years back I used to have a business colleague whose voice was particularly high-pitched (and her native language is Spanish) and while I had no trouble in person, I couldn't hear her on conference calls even back in the days when I could hear some people on the phone yet. So it's not surprising that I'm still working on higher frequencies.  Many voices sound really good right now, and even, as noted already, some music.  But those pesky high frequencies are still not completely integrated, which makes sound quality less than great for voices with a noticeable high-frequency component. But this is the deal.  I get my mapping, then I rehab, rehab, rehab. I've also been wearing my hearing aid in my left ear, at my audiologist's suggestion.  She wants my left auditory nerve to be getting...

I had an appointment with my audiologist today; remapping (badly needed, I'd gone all echo-y and we got THAT mostly adjusted out) and for my three-month testing to see where I am (and also to confirm that I should proceed with my second surgery). Well.  Where I am is really, really good.  My word comprehension, in the absence of context, last February - with my hearing aids - was 19%.  Today, with the CI alone it was 89% and with the CI and the hearing aid, 92%.   I don't actually wear my hearing aid  anymore, though the audiologist said I should try to wear it between now and my surgery, just to keep my left auditory nerve active.  But it did help a bit.  Apparently the average score at 3 months is around 60% so even though I felt like I got a slow start, I'm really getting a lot of benefit from this, and when I get my second CI it can only get better! This is just wonderful news.  I knew it was better - how could I not?  But I don't k...

So now that I have my second surgery scheduled I thought I might try wearing my hearing aid in my left ear for a while.  My audiologist had suggested that it would be a good idea to stimulate my left auditory nerve for a while. I may try it again, but when I tried it yesterday it seemed like nothing.  I mean, my left ear with that hearing aid was my entire entry into sound until May, and it sounded remarkably insignificant.  It was amazing.  This is how much my standard for hearing has already improved. With my CI I am not even close to normal hearing.  Among other things, I'm in dire need of a remapping (and have one scheduled for Tuesday).  But even with the oddities (mostly echoes and some tinniness) I can hear an order of magnitude better than I could with the hearing aid. I knew that, but the practical demonstration still took me aback.  It's an odd feeling, but definitely validates my decision to proceed with my second ear.   Even thou...